raindancewx

I'm rooting hard for the ongoing SOI crash. Currently down to -3.1 for Dec 1-27. Over +10 in Nov and Oct. Think it will may end up lower than that by month end. It isn't correlated super strongly with January precipitation, but it is fairly strongly correlated with January-March. Current reading (-3.1) would be 1.32", +/-1.25" at 95% certainty using the Dec SOI readings for 1931-2016 against Jan-Mar 1932-2017.

Anyone want to guess when we'll get some weather down here? Last measurable precipitation was October 5th - longest dry streak here since 1956. European ensembles seem to be hinting at January 4th or so.

It's been neat watching the cold return to the Northern Plains - the high in Bismarck for Dec 1-20 was 42.5F, but for Dec 1-26 its down to 35.4F, cold is slaughtering huge amounts of the heat, but suspect the Northern Plains end up at +4 to +6 anyway, the mean December high for Bismarck for 1951-2010 is 26.1F, so 30/31F is still pretty warm. Obviously the deeper into the month you get, the harder it is for daily anomalous heat/cold to change the monthly anomalies.

We're going to end up at 52F/53F with no meaningful snow for the mountains or valleys since October in NM, going to be a horrible May-June for fires without a huge turn around. The huge heat in the Northern Plains / AZ/CA with a cold NE is often a strong wet signal down here for March, which would be nice. Hasn't been wet (+20%) in March against the means sinc 2007.

I was playing with Nino 1.2 temperature correlations earlier today - its interesting that it isn't working this December. Long-term trend, and pretty strong at that - is for the Northern Plains to be cold in December if Nino 1.2 is cold in November. It's trending colder there now at the end of the month, but Bismarck looks like it will be +5 or so by the end of the month nonetheless. The areas that are coldest in Mexico this month should also be warmest - pretty strong trend. The yellows/blues are pretty strong relationships for ~68 year period.

The super hot November, centered on NM/CO makes a lot of sense looking at the composites, cold Nino 1.2 Oct = hot November for that area for 1948-2016. I was pleasantly surprised to see NM is near the 0 mark for February's correlation to March, it seems like cold Nino 1.2 has the strongest temperature impact here in November, then it fades to no impact by March, before gaining in power again.

This is just for fun...but all five Decembers here without rain/snow at at were followed by cold Aprils here, and the composite is cold nationally, literally no one above the +1F threshold for April highs against 1951-2010. I'm sure something will get screwed up, but its interesting nonetheless.

I'm rooting for the cold forecast to come into the Northern Plains to fail to some degree. In La Nina years, the December mean high in Bismarck (27 La Ninas from 1930-31 to 2016-17) is 24F. When the high is above 24F in Bismarck in La Nina Decembers, tend to get snow down here in March. Mean high for Dec 1-20 in Bismarck is 42.5F, the models have it falling to the low 30s by the end of the month with highs in the teens and single digits.

Have to do some more replications, but using the extended data for Nino 1.2, Nino 3.4, and the PDO, can just about replicate winter precipitation for Albuquerque for last year. Harder to do then it looks, not many years with negatives in Nino 3.4 that are positive in Nino 1.2 like last year.

PDO Data: http://research.jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest.txt (N-A is Nov-Apr PDO value)

Nino 1.2 (1951-2000 base, constant anomalies): https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/gcos_wgsp/Timeseries/Data/nino12.long.anom.data (DJF mean used)

Nino 3.4 (1951-2000 base, constant anomalies): https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/gcos_wgsp/Timeseries/Data/nino34.long.anom.data (DJF mean used)

Blend for the current winter would be 1934, 1934, 1954, 1985, 1996, 1996, 2007, assuming +0.25 for the PDO in Nov-Apr, -0.65C for Nino 3.4 in DJF, and -0.80C in Nino 3.4 in DJF. Would imply it gets much wetter at some point, correcting hard toward average. If I'm not cold enough for the PDO, Nino 3.4, or Nino 1.2, would be drier.

^^ It's possible, but for the 90-day period of winter, we're 21% (19/90) through, and the anomalies are around +12F or more in places in the Northern Plains. 

I think of it like this, to be even average, you solve for x, where x is the departure value for remainder of winter to get the northern plains to average:

(0.21 * 12) + (0.79*x) = 0

2.53 + 0.79x = 0

-2.53 = 0.79x

x = -3.2F

So it has to be over 3F below normal (-3.2F) the rest of the winter just for them to get to normal. I had ND at +0F to +1F for the winter, but even that's pretty hard.

I enjoy reading Weatherbell's seasonal outlooks, but going to be pretty hard to get to this:

Given this:

Warmest area of the country right now is the place they thought would be coldest.

Dewpoint is back into the 30s here for the first time in ages, I think the STJ is going to be more of a factor later in the winter, especially since we're at ~75 days here without precipitation and something, somehow, has to get down here to bring rain or snow given the all-time precip-free streak here is 109 days. It's trying to snow tonight (37F, 30F dew point), but don't think it will.

The SOI has been running very negative for the first time since June 30 - July 3, so would expect some kind of change to the pattern in 2-3 weeks at the latest.

30 Nov 2017    1012.32    1006.05    21.57    10.40    9.20
1 Dec 2017    1012.99    1006.60    13.86    10.80    9.27
2 Dec 2017    1013.34    1007.50    11.00    10.93    9.37
3 Dec 2017    1011.81    1007.60    2.54    10.78    9.25
4 Dec 2017    1011.90    1006.85    6.90    10.44    9.08
5 Dec 2017    1012.14    1005.40    15.67    10.64    9.10
6 Dec 2017    1011.16    1005.40    10.59    10.86    9.21
7 Dec 2017    1011.15    1006.10    6.90    10.98    9.35
8 Dec 2017    1012.17    1006.60    9.60    10.69    9.45
9 Dec 2017    1013.21    1007.35    11.11    10.71    9.44
10 Dec 2017    1012.44    1008.50    1.14    10.63    9.30
11 Dec 2017    1011.42    1009.65    -10.12    10.31    9.11
12 Dec 2017    1010.50    1008.95    -11.26    9.93    8.85
13 Dec 2017    1010.91    1008.20    -5.24    9.53    8.67
14 Dec 2017    1009.89    1007.85    -8.72    8.83    8.54
15 Dec 2017    1008.75    1007.45    -12.56    8.02    8.44
16 Dec 2017    1007.94    1007.90    -19.10    6.86    8.27
17 Dec 2017    1007.96    1008.10    -20.03    5.77    8.07

It's kind of incredible looking on Ryan Maue's new page to see how cold the European thinks it will get here around Christmas. High of 22F would be 24F below normal here. High is forecast at 12F in Santa Fe, with a low around -10F. Those are not common readings out here for areas that are populated.

I don't know if it will continue, but the SOI has had a major drop to negative values over the past four days, first big, somewhat extended drop since June/July. Usually when the SOI runs counter-cyclically to the predominant ENSO mode you get some crazy stuff. I'd say it won't really weaken the La Nina too much but it will weaken its effects if that makes any sense.

The latest GFS has the entire West, Mexico to Canada covered in snow in the next ten days.

Hoping the storms in the long range verify - the analogs had it very warm through about Dec 15 here, before a split showed up mid-Dec to mid-Jan - either very cold or very warm. The dry/warm years tended to go cold, the dry/wet years tended to stay warm...so we'll see!

This was my favorite picture of the snow in TX - snow literally covering Harvey debris in Rockport, TX less than four months after it hit.

Here is where winter stands ~1/9 through winter. Suspect the reds will hold on in Montana and Arizona through Dec 31, but the rest of the country is up for grabs if we can get the MJO coherently into phases 7/8/1/2/3 by the end of the month. The snow forecast in the interior NW over the next 10 days or so makes me think that area will stay cold.

Going to be very interesting seeing how the high temperature anomaly for December finishes in Albuquerque - January is heavily favored to have the coldest anomaly here in low-solar La Ninas, and to a lesser extent in low-solar years generally. Signal is less strong for whether Dec/Feb ends up warmest. I went -1.5, +0.0, +1.3 for Dec, Jan, Feb, between a warm Nov/Mar because assumed it would snow in December, but the raw analogs had -0.8, -1.2, +0.1 for the three months. 

Monterrey, MX supposedly this morning.

Could've sworn I said somewhere I thought there was a shot at a blue norther interacting with the STJ, that's kind of what has happened, but can't find it.

If the MJO stays active, and I think its magnitude is correlated to some extent to the QBO and Solar Conditions - this setup should return later in the winter, but probably further to the north, which could be a good set up for Amarillo, Dallas and Eastern NM.

Neat to see #houstonsnow trending on Twitter. Lots of people saying its their first time seeing snow falling ever in San Antonio and Houston.

I love watching people deep in TX/MX and the South react to rare snow. It's neat to see. The 2008-09 winter was an analog that I used for my winter outlook, and it snowed in Houston & New Orleans - so not too surprised to see it. It was a low solar La Nina, after a La Nina, two years after an El Nino, and with impressive Gulf of Mexico hurricanes.

Its amazing seeing snow forecast at short ranges SW of Brownsville TX in MX, and also by New Orleans, Houston and other places that almost never see it.

Looks like November, which was hyped to be pretty cold, ended up only slightly cold in the East, with a look somewhat similar to 2007, 2012, 1949, and maybe 1995 distant 4th. It certainly looks nothing like 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 or other recent winters with memorable features for the East. The blend of the 2007/2012 gives some cold in the Lakes/NE and a lot of heat in the SW for November which is the right idea even if the core of the cold/heat is off a bit. A blend of 1995/1996/1999 isn't bad either, two cold years in the Lakes/NE v. one super torch.

Going to be hard for December to be too cold nationally, with 20% of the month registering incredible warmth. The cool area to date (NV) is where the Canadian had it cold to date. The reds are fading some in the West generally, with the high here forecast at 37F or so on 12/7, which is ~11F below normal for the date. The current look of the map for December is close to what my analogs had for January, but the MJO progression has been different from the years I used, so its not super surprising. The Canadian look for Dec (Nov 30) had the cold centered on NV, with NM/CO/WY on the edge of it/near average and everyone else quite warm.

This setup is early days of "pattern b" to me. One of the three patterns my analogs had for the winter. The precip by El Paso and up the entire East Coast is consistent with it.

King NAM has snow for much of TX, NM and NE MX.

1 hour ago, WhiteoutWX said:

Those temperature anomalies would be quite the reversal of what the models are showing for the first half of December for large parts of the country. 

Not sure how it will hold up, but my analogs had the cold East/hot West look in Nov, and then a gradual reversal to what the Canadian shows in December, probably Dec 15-25. I would offer that with the complete lack of rain/snow in Albuquerque since Oct 5, and the record for no-precip being 109 days since 1892, any rain/snow that makes its way deep in the SW will be the indicator of the change. Also, November in La Nina years is a pretty poor indicator for winter anomalies. I know people like 1995-96 in the NE, but Nov 2007 is close too, the cold in the East in 1995 was much more intense than this year, but 1995+2007 isn't bad for Nov.

It has snowed some in the northern mountains, its the valleys and central areas that are lacking. We're in a top-30 dry stretch for consecutive days without precipitation in Albuquerque back to 1892. The record is 109 days, currently at around 60. Would assume the streak ends way before 109 days though.